The Day War Came

Name: The Day War Came
Author: Nicola Davies

by Nicola Davies

Ages 6–9 Reading age 7 Picture book Set in school movingthoughtful

A girl is at her desk when war arrives, and travels alone to a country where a classroom tells her there is no chair for her.

A story about children, moving and thoughtful in tone. We would put it with children of 6–9, and at a reading age of about 7 for reading alone.

Worth knowing before you buy

Death in wartime
Separated from family

None of this makes it a bad book — often the opposite. It is here so you can decide whether it is right for your child now or in a year or two.

Our take on this book

A little girl is at school, an ordinary morning, when war comes — and in a few pages she loses everything and flees alone across sea and land to a country where every door is closed to her, until one child's small act of welcome changes things. Nicola Davies wrote this poem in response to the refusal to admit lone refugee children, and Rebecca Cobb's illustrations give it quiet, devastating power. It is a picture book, but its subject is grave: the sudden violence of war and the coldness of a country that turns a child away, told with restraint but real emotional force. For a child of five or six upward, ideally shared with a caring adult, it is a profoundly moving way to build compassion — the ending, in which a chair is offered, is one of the most quietly hopeful images in any children's book. A short, important work that has moved a great many readers, young and old, to kindness.